#firstworldwar — Public Fediverse posts

The Imperial War Museum is ashamed of Britain’s heroes

The Imperial War Museum in London was founded on 5 March 1917, during the First World War. Its…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #FirstWorldWar #History #second-world-war
https://www.europesays.com/britain/137215/

https://www.europesays.com/britain/137215/ The Imperial War Museum is ashamed of Britain’s heroes #Britain #FirstWorldWar #History #SecondWorldWar

https://www.europesays.com/3274940/ Meghalaya delegation discovers three more Garo WWI graves in Malta #69thGaroLabourCompany #FirstWorldWar #GaroHillsSoldiers #GaroWWIGraves #malta #MaltaWarCemetery #MeghalayaDelegation #MeghalayaWartimeHistory #PietaMilitaryCemetery #ThomasASangma

Walking along the trails of the First World War, I came across this beautiful roe deer. ❤️

#roedeer #wildlifephotography #mountainlife #firstworldwar #naturephotography

Eliza Maud Inglis (1864-1917)

Imagine being born and brought up in India with seven siblings, educated well, spending a brief time in Tasmania before being brought to Scotland, specifically Edinburgh, where you completed your education, before going to Paris for finishing school. You then decided that instead of finding a husband and producing heirs, you fancied becoming a doctor, of all things! And not just any doctor, but a doctor who also got involved with women’s suffrage, created hospitals and inspired others to follow you, then spent her last three years caring for the sick and wounded of a world war.

Meet Elsie Inglis, third oldest child of eight, and a young woman who just couldn’t abide to be told she couldn’t, or shouldn’t! 

Elsie had apparently always wanted to be involved in Medicine, no doubt building on the exploits of pioneers such as Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, and her efforts to create a basis for Nursing as a career and calling. Medicine was not the easiest career to choose at a time when women of a certain upbringing were supposed to look pretty and smile.

When Elsie’s father John retired from his career in the service of the Britsh Raj culminating in being Chief Commissioner of Oudh, he took his large family firstly to Tasmania, where some of them settled, and then on to Edinburgh, where his daughter wanted to study to become a doctor.  John was nothing if not supportive to his children’s whims, and in 1886 Elsie was enrolled in the ‘Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women’, newly opened by another of the pioneering female Medical Practitioners, Dr Sophia Jex-Blake. However, unfortunately for Dr Jex-Blake, there seems to have been a wide gap in the effectiveness of her as a physician, and that of a tutor, or teacher, and after a period of legal battles, scandal and upheaval, John Inglis was prominent in the creation of a rival school, ‘Edinburgh College of Medicine for Women‘ at which Elsie then continued her studies and gained her Triple Q in 1892 before spending the next couple of years working in Dublin and London. Elsie gained her Degree in Surgery and Medicine in 1899, just after the University of Edinburgh first allowed women to have them. 

Elsie was becoming more and more interested in medicine for women and children and gynecology, and was led into the suffrage movement by her dissatisfaction with how women and children were treated, and how poor the funding was for women’s health. She spent time as a leader in the cause, and lectured and fundraised for many years.  While running a Dr’s practice in Edinburgh with Dr Jessie MacLaren MacGregor she would invariably waive fees for poorer women patients, and was also known to fund patients recuperating at sea-side resorts. 

By the start of WW1in 1914, and into her 50’s, Elsie had gone against the will of the Government and created the ‘Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service Committee’, which would go on to provide all female relief hospitals to assist the Allied war effort. Unfortunately, she was met by an official damnation of her work and ideas, and the British Government was not ready for all female hospitals at all. The red Cross refused to work with them, and there is a famous apocryphal story where some General told Elsie “My good lady, go home and sit still..”  

Well, that was never going to happen! 

The French Government however, was happy to deal with this mad British woman and her all-female hospital units, and eventually Elsie had set up and sent fourteen units into France and Serbia to care for wounded soldiers. Over the next three years Elsie served in France, Serbia, The Ukraine and Russia. She pulled on her acquaintances from the Suffrage Movement to help fund and man the units, and she worked alongside many of them in Serbia especially, and later in Russia. She was captured while in Serbia, being repatriated to Switzerland in 1916. She was soon back and working in Russia, but unfortunately the constant fatigue, bad conditions and stress took its toll on Elsie’s health, and in 1917 she was forced to head back home to Blighty, docking in Newcastle upon Tyne on November 25th, where she died the following day. She had bowel cancer.

The story should end there. 

It doesn’t.

Elsie Inglis was given a State Funeral in Edinburgh, where she was feted as a fallen hero. Members of the British Royalty were joined by Serbian Royalty at the funeral. Thousands of people lined the streets as her body was driven around, and it seems that though she had had to battle to achieve as much as she did, once dead, she became revered by her peers and her supporters and her doubters alike. There was a memorial service held in the Houses of Commons’ Anglican church. This too was attended by British and Serbian Royalty.

Elsie has been commemorated in Serbia, Russia as well as London and Edinburgh, with buildings named after her, banknotes and stamps having her portrait on. 

Many of the institutions Elsie Inglis founded have continued to carry on her work, and her attitude and spirit continue to inspire young women nowadays. 

So, there we have it, the life story of a woman who was given much that women at that time could never dream of, education, career choice and freedom. When she was ignored and ridiculed by the male establishment, she got on and achieved her goals anyway, and through it all she continually called upon herself to help those who were less advantaged, less able or in pain. 

Link here to see the obituary written for Elsie Inglis by Beatrice Russell. Copyright held by the National Library of Medicine, National centre for Biotechnology Information.

Eglantyne Jebb

There are some names that really ought to be better known. Eglantyne Jebb is one of them.

If the name means anything at all to you, you may know her as the founder of Save the Children. That alone would be quite an achievement, but it barely scratches the surface of what this extraordinary British woman actually did. Because Eglantyne didn’t just establish a charity. She helped change the way that the world thought about children.

Born in Shropshire on 25 August 1876, Eglantyne grew up in a comfortable and socially conscious family. Her mother, also called Eglantyne, was involved in charitable work, and the idea that those fortunate enough to have money and education had some responsibility towards those who did not was part of the world in which the younger Eglantyne was raised. She studied history at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, and afterwards trained as a teacher.

She hated it.

Which is probably worth mentioning, because we have a habit of tidying remarkable women into neat little biographies in which they appear to know exactly what they are doing from the age of twelve. Eglantyne didn’t, teaching wasn’t for her so she left it behind. Instead, while living in Cambridge, she became involved with the Charity Organisation Society and began investigating poverty. Not just feeling sorry for people. She investigated it. She visited families, gathered information and examined the conditions in which people were actually living. In 1906 she published Cambridge: A Study in Social Questions, based upon this research. It was an approach that would remain important throughout her life. Charity work was useful, certainly, but sympathy without understanding just wasn’t enough.

Then came the First World War. And afterwards came something which appalled her.

The fighting officially ended in November 1918, but the Allied blockade of Germany continued into the following year. Across Germany and Austria, civilians were suffering from severe shortages. Children, inevitably, were among those paying the price. To many British people these were the children of the enemy. To Eglantyne, they were children. That distinction – or rather her refusal to make it – is probably the key to everything that followed. Alongside her sister, Dorothy Buxton, Eglantyne became involved with the Fight the Famine movement. They wanted the blockade lifted and food allowed to reach starving civilians in Europe.

In 1919, Eglantyne took to Trafalgar Square with leaflets showing the effects of starvation on children. The headline was not subtle:

“Our Blockade Has Caused This – Millions of Children Are Starving To Death”

She was arrested. And there is something wonderfully ballsy about this part of her story. Britain had just emerged from a devastating war with Germany. Anti-German feeling had not disappeared overnight, and here was an Englishwoman publicly asking people to care about German and Austrian children. Eglantyne was prosecuted and fined £5.

Then something rather lovely happened. The prosecuting counsel was apparently so impressed by her argument that he offered to pay the fine himself. That £5 is regarded by Save the Children as its first donation. Eglantyne and Dorothy realised that protesting was not enough. Children needed food, medicine and practical assistance, and they needed it immediately. In May 1919 the Save the Children Fund was established.

Even then, persuading the British public to donate money to children in countries Britain had so recently been fighting was not an easy sell. Eglantyne was asking people to look beyond borders, governments and blame and see hungry children who had played no part in creating the war that had devastated their lives. And it worked.

The organisation rapidly expanded its work. In 1920 the International Save the Children Union was established in Geneva, and when famine devastated Russia in 1921, Save the Children launched another huge relief effort. A ship, the SS Torcello, was loaded with around 600 tons of food and medical supplies. During the Russian relief operation, meals funded through Save the Children were eventually feeding hundreds of thousands of people.

But Eglantyne had begun thinking beyond emergency relief. Feeding a starving child was essential. But why had the child been allowed to starve in the first place? Saving children after catastrophe was necessary. Could the world agree that children were entitled to protection before catastrophe swallowed them?

Today, the phrase Children’s Rights seems perfectly ordinary. In Eglantyne’s time, it was anything but. Children were generally considered dependants for whom adults were responsible. Eglantyne pushed the idea further.

Children should not have to depend on the goodwill of adults. They had rights of their own.

In 1923, she drafted a short document containing five principles. It became known as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, or the Geneva Declaration. There was nothing complicated about it. Children should be given what they need to develop. Hungry children should be fed. Sick children should be cared for. Children should receive help in times of distress. They should be protected from exploitation.

Simple ideas. Revolutionary implications.

On 26 September 1924, the League of Nations adopted the Declaration of Geneva. Its opening declared that humanity owed the child “The best it had to give.”

Let’s just take a minute to think about that.

A woman born in Victorian England had helped persuade an international organisation representing nations across the world to formally recognise that the welfare of children was not simply a private family matter or an occasional subject for charity. Humanity itself had responsibilities towards them. A woman. Helped to convince them of that.

In the words of M People – “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

Eglantyne did not live long enough to see where that idea would eventually lead. She suffered from serious thyroid problems and died in Geneva in 1928. She was only 52.

But the document survived her.

The United Nations adopted an expanded Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959. Thirty years later came the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, setting out children’s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights across 54 articles. Eglantyne’s five simple principles had helped to lay the foundations for something vast.

And Save the Children survived too. What began in the ruins of the First World War became an international organisation still operating over a century later. In 2025 alone, Save the Children reported reaching 37.8 million children in 92 countries. Yet Eglantyne Jebb herself remains strangely absent from the collection of names we reach for when we talk about influential British women or Strong Feminine Energy.

Maybe part of the reason for that is because her work sits in that awkward space between activism, humanitarianism and political reform. She didn’t discover an element or fly an aeroplane or lead an army. There is no single dramatic moment into which her achievement can be squeezed. She looked at something society had largely accepted and said that it wasn’t good enough. Children should not starve because adults had gone to war. They shouldn’t suffer because they were born on the wrong side of a border. Helping them should not depend on someone feeling charitable and their protection should not be regarded as a favour. It should be their right.

In 2026, 150 years after her birth, millions of people know the organisation she created. Millions more live in countries which have formally accepted the principle she helped to introduce to international politics: that children possess rights simply because they are children. Yet comparatively, few know her name.

So let’s fix that.

Eglantyne Jebb.

Shropshire woman. Failed teacher. Social researcher. Campaigner. Lawbreaker. Humanitarian.

And the woman who showed the world that its children were owed something better.

A Little Something You Can Do

Writing about Eglantyne Jebb feels particularly timely.

At Buxton for Books this year, I met author Zoe Sharp. Next month, she will be driving a truck carrying supplies and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Eglantyne believed that feeling sympathy for people in desperate circumstances wasn’t enough when there was something practical that could be done to help them. More than a century later, that seems like a pretty good principle to live by.

If you’d like to support Zoe and help towards the journey and the aid she is taking with her, you can find her JustGiving page here:

CONVOY4UKRAINE

Nobody is under any obligation to donate, obviously. But if this article has left you wondering what you can do today, here’s one small answer.

https://www.europesays.com/conflicts/4633/ Following a Goan photographer across empires and a global war #Conflict #CultureAndLifestyle #FirstWorldWar #Global #GlobalConflict #PVictor #VictorPereira

Eglantyne Jebb

There are some names that really ought to be better known. Eglantyne Jebb is one of them.

If the name means anything at all to you, you may know her as the founder of Save the Children. That alone would be quite an achievement, but it barely scratches the surface of what this extraordinary British woman actually did. Because Eglantyne didn’t just establish a charity. She helped change the way that the world thought about children.

Born in Shropshire on 25 August 1876, Eglantyne grew up in a comfortable and socially conscious family. Her mother, also called Eglantyne, was involved in charitable work, and the idea that those fortunate enough to have money and education had some responsibility towards those who did not was part of the world in which the younger Eglantyne was raised. She studied history at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford, and afterwards trained as a teacher.

She hated it.

Which is probably worth mentioning, because we have a habit of tidying remarkable women into neat little biographies in which they appear to know exactly what they are doing from the age of twelve. Eglantyne didn’t, teaching wasn’t for her so she left it behind. Instead, while living in Cambridge, she became involved with the Charity Organisation Society and began investigating poverty. Not just feeling sorry for people. She investigated it. She visited families, gathered information and examined the conditions in which people were actually living. In 1906 she published Cambridge: A Study in Social Questions, based upon this research. It was an approach that would remain important throughout her life. Charity work was useful, certainly, but sympathy without understanding just wasn’t enough.

Then came the First World War. And afterwards came something which appalled her.

The fighting officially ended in November 1918, but the Allied blockade of Germany continued into the following year. Across Germany and Austria, civilians were suffering from severe shortages. Children, inevitably, were among those paying the price. To many British people these were the children of the enemy. To Eglantyne, they were children. That distinction – or rather her refusal to make it – is probably the key to everything that followed. Alongside her sister, Dorothy Buxton, Eglantyne became involved with the Fight the Famine movement. They wanted the blockade lifted and food allowed to reach starving civilians in Europe.

In 1919, Eglantyne took to Trafalgar Square with leaflets showing the effects of starvation on children. The headline was not subtle:

“Our Blockade Has Caused This – Millions of Children Are Starving To Death”

She was arrested. And there is something wonderfully ballsy about this part of her story. Britain had just emerged from a devastating war with Germany. Anti-German feeling had not disappeared overnight, and here was an Englishwoman publicly asking people to care about German and Austrian children. Eglantyne was prosecuted and fined £5.

Then something rather lovely happened. The prosecuting counsel was apparently so impressed by her argument that he offered to pay the fine himself. That £5 is regarded by Save the Children as its first donation. Eglantyne and Dorothy realised that protesting was not enough. Children needed food, medicine and practical assistance, and they needed it immediately. In May 1919 the Save the Children Fund was established.

Even then, persuading the British public to donate money to children in countries Britain had so recently been fighting was not an easy sell. Eglantyne was asking people to look beyond borders, governments and blame and see hungry children who had played no part in creating the war that had devastated their lives. And it worked.

The organisation rapidly expanded its work. In 1920 the International Save the Children Union was established in Geneva, and when famine devastated Russia in 1921, Save the Children launched another huge relief effort. A ship, the SS Torcello, was loaded with around 600 tons of food and medical supplies. During the Russian relief operation, meals funded through Save the Children were eventually feeding hundreds of thousands of people.

But Eglantyne had begun thinking beyond emergency relief. Feeding a starving child was essential. But why had the child been allowed to starve in the first place? Saving children after catastrophe was necessary. Could the world agree that children were entitled to protection before catastrophe swallowed them?

Today, the phrase Children’s Rights seems perfectly ordinary. In Eglantyne’s time, it was anything but. Children were generally considered dependants for whom adults were responsible. Eglantyne pushed the idea further.

Children should not have to depend on the goodwill of adults. They had rights of their own.

In 1923, she drafted a short document containing five principles. It became known as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, or the Geneva Declaration. There was nothing complicated about it. Children should be given what they need to develop. Hungry children should be fed. Sick children should be cared for. Children should receive help in times of distress. They should be protected from exploitation.

Simple ideas. Revolutionary implications.

On 26 September 1924, the League of Nations adopted the Declaration of Geneva. Its opening declared that humanity owed the child “The best it had to give.”

Let’s just take a minute to think about that.

A woman born in Victorian England had helped persuade an international organisation representing nations across the world to formally recognise that the welfare of children was not simply a private family matter or an occasional subject for charity. Humanity itself had responsibilities towards them. A woman. Helped to convince them of that.

In the words of M People – “What have you done today to make you feel proud?”

Eglantyne did not live long enough to see where that idea would eventually lead. She suffered from serious thyroid problems and died in Geneva in 1928. She was only 52.

But the document survived her.

The United Nations adopted an expanded Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959. Thirty years later came the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, setting out children’s civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights across 54 articles. Eglantyne’s five simple principles had helped to lay the foundations for something vast.

And Save the Children survived too. What began in the ruins of the First World War became an international organisation still operating over a century later. In 2025 alone, Save the Children reported reaching 37.8 million children in 92 countries. Yet Eglantyne Jebb herself remains strangely absent from the collection of names we reach for when we talk about influential British women or Strong Feminine Energy.

Maybe part of the reason for that is because her work sits in that awkward space between activism, humanitarianism and political reform. She didn’t discover an element or fly an aeroplane or lead an army. There is no single dramatic moment into which her achievement can be squeezed. She looked at something society had largely accepted and said that it wasn’t good enough. Children should not starve because adults had gone to war. They shouldn’t suffer because they were born on the wrong side of a border. Helping them should not depend on someone feeling charitable and their protection should not be regarded as a favour. It should be their right.

In 2026, 150 years after her birth, millions of people know the organisation she created. Millions more live in countries which have formally accepted the principle she helped to introduce to international politics: that children possess rights simply because they are children. Yet comparatively, few know her name.

So let’s fix that.

Eglantyne Jebb.

Shropshire woman. Failed teacher. Social researcher. Campaigner. Lawbreaker. Humanitarian.

And the woman who showed the world that its children were owed something better.

A Little Something You Can Do

Writing about Eglantyne Jebb feels particularly timely.

At Buxton for Books this year, I met author Zoe Sharp. Next month, she will be driving a truck carrying supplies and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Eglantyne believed that feeling sympathy for people in desperate circumstances wasn’t enough when there was something practical that could be done to help them. More than a century later, that seems like a pretty good principle to live by.

If you’d like to support Zoe and help towards the journey and the aid she is taking with her, you can find her JustGiving page here:

CONVOY4UKRAINE

Nobody is under any obligation to donate, obviously. But if this article has left you wondering what you can do today, here’s one small answer.

Doom, gloom and GCSE English | Letter
By Guardian Staff

The set books for English literature GCSE make grim reading, says Rachel Stott

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/sep/11/doom-gloom-and-gcse-english

#GCSEs #Books #Education #Exams #Schools #Culture #Macbeth #Poetry #Firstworldwar #TheGuardian #GuardianStaff

India Gate, but make it chocolate. Belgium reveals gift that didn’t reach PM Modi

The Belgian chocolate replica of India Gate that caught attention online came with a sweet diplomatic story: it…
#Belgium #BE #Europe #Europa #EU #bartdewever #BelgianchocolateIndiaGate #BelgianEmbassy #België #belgien #Belgique #belgium #diplomaticgift #firstworldwar #FlandersFields #IndiaBelgiumties #Nachrichten #Nieuws #Nouvelles #pmnarendramodi #viralchocolatereplica
https://www.europesays.com/3236205/

https://www.europesays.com/3236205/ India Gate, but make it chocolate. Belgium reveals gift that didn’t reach PM Modi #BartDeWever #BelgianChocolateIndiaGate #BelgianEmbassy #België #belgien #Belgique #belgium #DiplomaticGift #FirstWorldWar #FlandersFields #IndiaBelgiumTies #Nachrichten #Nieuws #Nouvelles #PmNarendraModi #ViralChocolateReplica

India Gate, but make it chocolate. Belgium reveals gift that didn’t reach PM Modi https://www.byteseu.com/2339531/ #BartDeWever #BelgianChocolateIndiaGate #BelgianEmbassy #Belgium #DiplomaticGift #FirstWorldWar #FlandersFields #IndiaBelgiumTies #PMNARENDRAMODI #ViralChocolateReplica

https://www.europesays.com/be/36372/ India Gate, but make it chocolate. Belgium reveals gift that didn’t reach PM Modi #BartDeWever #BelgianChocolateIndiaGate #BelgianEmbassy #Belgium #DiplomaticGift #FirstWorldWar #FlandersFields #INDIABELGIUMTIES #PMNarendraModi #ViralChocolateReplica

https://www.europesays.com/be/36370/ India Gate, but make it chocolate. Belgium reveals gift that didn’t reach PM Modi #BartDeWever #BelgianChocolateIndiaGate #BelgianEmbassy #Belgium #DiplomaticGift #FirstWorldWar #FlandersFields #INDIABELGIUMTIES #PMNarendraModi #ViralChocolateReplica

Forged in the Trenches – The 3rd Canadian Division in the First World War (1915–1918)

The Division’s battlefield initiation came immediately at Mount Sorrel from June 2 to 13, 1916. Despite devastating early losses, including the near destruction…
#Canada #3rdCanadianDivision #FirstWorldWar #history
https://www.europesays.com/canada/195791/

The Jewish heroes who fought for Britain – and why their courage matters today

In doing so, Mann placed himself within a long and storied tradition of British Jewish military heroism. It…
#EuropeSays #Britain #Europe #EU #FirstWorldWar #second-world-war
https://www.europesays.com/britain/112935/

https://www.europesays.com/britain/112935/ The Jewish heroes who fought for Britain – and why their courage matters today #Britain #FirstWorldWar #SecondWorldWar

https://www.europesays.com/uk/1174274/ The Jewish heroes who fought for Britain – and why their courage matters today #Britain #England #FirstWorldWar #GreatBritain #NorthernIreland #Scotland #SecondWorldWar #UK #UnitedKingdom #Wales

“Idyll” by Siegfried Sassoon

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) was one of the leading British poets of the 20th century, one of the famous “war poets” and a decorated World War 1 veteran. His sobering wartime verses, stripped of patriotic illusions, exposed the horrors and brutality of war, countering the prevailing narratives of the time.

You might not immediately associate the poem presented here with war, but it helps to have some context. Sassoon originally wrote it in his poetry notebook in February 1918, while the WW1 was still ongoing. Unlike most of his war poems, the verses of this one have a calming and reassuring effect, leaning on lovely pastoral imagery. But there’s also a lingering sense of loss and sorrow throughout — subtle yet deep and unsettling. 

While not dedicated to anyone in particular, one might easily see it as referring to a close friend — or, rather, to the hope of a reunion with the unnamed fallen comrade, in the great and idyllic hereafter. At this point, it might also be helpful to note that Sassoon was a deeply spiritual man, not always in a conventional sense. Many of his poems, even the early ones, contain recognisably Christian themes, as seen in this poem.

In the grey summer garden I shall find you   
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.   
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;   
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.   
Not from the past you'll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:   
And I shall know the sense of life re-born   
From dreams into the mystery of morn   
Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there   
Till that calm song is done, at last we'll share
The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are   
Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn’s one star.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Siegfried Sassoon (an Encyclopedia Britannica entry)

Intro to WW1 Poetry: Siegfried Sassoon

Rediscovering Siegfried Sassoon by Brooke Allen

Siegfried Sassoon: The reluctant hero by Michael Morpurgo

NOTES

I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.  

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To support my work, you can send me a donation via PayPal. It would be greatly appreciated!

COVER PHOTO CREDIT

Image by Alicia Christin Gerald via Unsplash.

After the Germans adopted the Stahlhelm (on the left in the picture) during the First World War, the British must have recognized how much more protection to the wearer it offered than the Brodie Helmet.

I wonder why they did not copy the German design. Was the cost of production a factor?

#History #MilitaryHistory #Helmet #Headwear #Stahlhelm #BrodieHelmet #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #GreatWar

This Canadian soldier waited 109 years for his funeral Kaddish

When Canadian First World War soldier Pvt. Albert Detmold was killed by German shelling on Aug. 15, 1917,…
#Canada #featured #FirstWorldWar #funeral #NorthStar
https://www.europesays.com/canada/162245/

The battlefield tactic from the First World War that’s being killed off by Ukraine

PUTTEN, NETHERLANDS – Think of war and you’re likely to picture trenches. From the Battle of the Somme…
#Ukraine #UA #Europe #Europa #EU #News #army #Defence #FirstWorldWar #Russia-Ukrainewar
https://www.europesays.com/ukraine/22786/

Robert Graves -- Good-Bye To All That

This 1929 autobiographical work is indispensable for an understanding of how many British dealt with the memory of the Great War in the years that followed.

The accounts of the chaos and confusion of military operations were vividly narrated, but did not come as a great surprise to me. I was more taken aback by the stories of allied mistreatment of German prisoners, with Graves picking out Canadian and Australian soldiers as especially notable for this behaviour.

"Good-Bye To All That" is rich with memorable anecdote and imagery, such as tommies using machine gun cooling water to make tea, and incidents of the wartime absurd, like the story of Graves mistakenly being reported as dead, then receiving a communication from his commanding officer: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you are alive.”

Nevertheless the horror of the war is never forgotten: “The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. He had been hit in 17 places.”

#Books #RobertGraves #GoodByeToAllThat #Autobiography #BritishLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #History

"When the #Ginsburg family gathered in #Kaunas on June 22, 1941, fourteen of them spent the day arguing over a single question. Should they flee east behind the retreating #Soviets, or stay? They weighed the #Germans. Some recalled the German occupation of the #FirstWorldWar and reasoned that the Germans were not so bad, that life would be harder but better than under the #Communists. They decided to stay. Of the fourteen who sat together that day, #WaldemarGinsburg alone survived the war. Years later he explained what they had failed to anticipate. They had expected trouble from the Germans, “but the trouble came from a direction which we did not expect.”

That sentence contains the history of the two weeks that followed. Between June 22 and July 6, 1941, the #Jews of Kaunas learned that the most immediate threat to their lives was not the invading army. It was the people among whom they had lived. Neighbors. Tradesmen. Men from their own streets."

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/when-kaunass-jews-learned-whom-to-fear/

Una muñeca de lana como amuleto de la suerte de un soldado del regimiento de Londres en la Primera Guerra Mundial (1914-1918). Soldados franceses usaron amuletos similares, a veces con colores patrióticos. 🏛️Wellcome #primeraguerramundial #firstworldwar

The women who served as munitions workers during the #FirstWorldWar endured dismal conditions and a plethora of dangers: illness, injury, and death.

Why are they barely remembered?

⌛️ Last chance to read this article for free

https://buff.ly/BfYORZK

The women who served as munitions workers during the #FirstWorldWar endured dismal conditions and a plethora of dangers: illness, injury, and death. Why are they barely remembered?

🔓 Patricia Fara’s new Great Debates is free for 7 days

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/great-debates/human-canaries-remembering-munitionettes

Canada’s first and largest all-Black military unit marks 110th anniversary

The first and largest all-Black military unit in Canadian history is marking it’s 110th anniversary. The No. 2…
#Canada #army #black #Canadian #CanadianArmedForces #FirstWorldWar #War
https://www.europesays.com/canada/117735/

#History #HistoryMatters #BattleOfTheSomme #WorldWarOne #FirstWorldWar https://www.facebook.com/20531316728/posts/10154009990506729/

World War 1 #OnThisDay

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://theorkneynews.scot/2026/06/28/world-war-1-onthisday/

The first day of the #Somme has become synonymous with incompetent leadership during the #FirstWorldWar. The true picture of the battle – and the role played by General Haig – is more complex.

⌛️ Last chance to read this archive article for free

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/was-somme-exercise-futility

The first day of the Somme has become synonymous with incompetent leadership during the #FirstWorldWar. The true picture of the battle – and the role played by General Haig – is more complex.

⌛️ Last chance to read this archive article for free

https://buff.ly/2l0TNCm

#DouglasHaig was born #OnThisDay in 1861.

The #Somme has become synonymous with incompetent leadership during the #FirstWorldWar. The true picture of the battle – and the role played by Haig – is more complex.

🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

https://buff.ly/2l0TNCm

Turkish Pre-Dreadnought Battleship Turgut Reis https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/turkish-pre-dreadnought-battleship-turgut-reis/ #Battleship, #FirstWorldWar, #MaritimeHistory, #NavalHistory, #Pre-dreadnought, #Pre-dreadnoughtBattleship, #TurgutReis, #TurkishNavy, #Warship, #WorldWarOne, #WW1

Coward review – soldiers find escapism and romance in wartime theatrical troupe https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/22/coward-review-soldiers-find-escapism-and-romance-in-wartime-theatrical-troupe #Film #CannesFilmFestival #DramaFilms #WarFilms #FirstWorldWar #Belgium #RomanceFilms #LgbtqRights #Culture #Europe #Festivals #WorldNews

HMS St. Vincent at anchor, Scapa Flow, Scotland https://www.destinationsjourney.com/historical-military-photographs/british-battleship-hms-st-vincent/ #RoyalNavy #battleofjutland #battleship #firstworldwar #hmsstvincent #warship #worldwarone #maritimehistory #NavalHistory

Two imperial ventures at Kut al-Amara, one in the #FirstWorldWar and another in the Iraq War, reveal the similarities – and differences – in the exercise of power.

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https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/kut-losses-two-disasters-mesopotamia

No revolutions, nothing medieval - a friend sent me this awesome resource about what German officers drank in 1910 and it probably explains a few things about the #FirstWorldWar

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/04/10/getting-colossally-drunk-royal-prussian-version/

#culinaryhistory #foodhistory #cocktails #Wilhelmine #drinking #militaryhistory

The Lighthorsemen (Australia-US 1987)

During the First World War, the still relatively new independent countries of Australia (1901) and New Zealand (1907) sent significant armed forces to join the ‘British Empire’ war effort against the ‘Central Powers’ of Austria, Germany and Turkey. Anzac (i.e. the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops suffered heavy losses in the failed British-French campaign in Gallipoli in 1915 but Australian Mounted troops played an important part in the success of campaigns in Egypt and Palestine, culminating in the capture of Jerusalem, late in 1917. The war effort was seen in both Australia and New Zealand as influential in developing a sense of national identity and in the 1980s, three films were made in Australia which in different ways explored this sense of identity presented through stories of military action. Peter Weir’s Gallipoli (Australia 1981) followed Bruce Beresford’s Breaker Morant (Australia 1980) which dealt with Australians fighting with the British Army in the Boer War.

The ‘Lighthorsemen’ were the regiments of the Australian Light Horse who were not cavalry in the 19th century sense but mounted infantry who rode into battle but dismounted to confront the enemy. Ironically the success of the Light Horse in Palestine was actually achieved through a cavalry charge. The film narrative is largely based on historical record and the characters are based on real people as revealed in the closing credits. This was the third film made about the decisive battle officially known The Battle of Beersheba on October 31st, 1917, a key moment in the larger third Battle of Gaza (the British having already failed twice). Success at Beersheba allowed the British Empire forces to advance on Jerusalem and in effect to secure Palestine. An earlier film 40,000 Horseman (Australia 1940) was directed by Charles Chauvel, the nephew of one of the senior officers of the Light Horse in Palestine. The film was successful both in Australia and overseas. The Lighthorsemen of 1987 was directed by Simon Wincer, who had earlier made a successful horse-racing drama, Phar Lap (1983). There were hopes that his film about the Light Horse would also do well and Wincer had a relatively large budget including some Hollywood investment. It was made in ‘Scope and the photography by Dean Selmer was highly praised  he was clearly familiar with John Ford’s cavalry pictures. (Wincer and Semer both later worked on other films featuring horses.) Although The Lighthorsemen was commercially successful in Australia, it generally didn’t make money in the UK or US (although the final battle sequence was widely praised). The original Australian cut of 131 mins appears to have been reduced to 115 mins in the UK and US.

There seem to be two main reasons why the film failed to reach expectations outside Australia. Many critics refer to the lack of stars. Whereas Weir’s Gallipoli starred a young Mel Gibson and Breaker Morant (about Australian horsemen in the Boer War) featured Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown, The Lighthorsemen had no stars among the four central characters. The second weakness identified is the script by Ian Jones. I’m not sure what was cut from the overseas prints but the lack of stars is compounded by the seemingly unbalanced approach to representing a four man ‘unit’. The narrative picks out a young man who is first seen as a farmer’s son who joins up after he sees a train carrying horses for the Light Horse racing through his locality. However, we have to wait some time before he joins one of the four-man units to replace a man who has been shot in a skirmish. Dave (Peter Phelps) turns out to be a good horseman and a crack shot but he shows a weakness that threatens his three partners – he can’t pull the trigger and kill the enemy. He will prove his bravery but he will be moved to the Ambulance Unit. Dave is the only character presented as ‘fully-rounded’ out of all the Lighthorsemen and in a sense he needs to feature in all the conventional scenes assigned to the hero, such as getting injured and being tended by a nurse in a field hospital. Their relationship will also bring them both to play a part  in an intelligence ruse which is key to the success in the Battle of Beersheba. This sequence features Anthony Andrews as a rather camp British officer who has an idea about how to fool the Germans and the Turks. I did wonder at first if he was based on T. E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’) but the end credits suggest this was based on another ‘real’ person. All of this means that the other three/four men in the Light Horse unit don’t have such important roles, although they each feature in skirmishes or the final charge.

The other major issue in the narrative structure is that the final section, the attack on Beersheba which is so brilliantly executed, tends to to mean that the earlier sequences building up to the battle are perhaps rendered less exciting. The point here is that like Gallipoli this film will suggest that the senior officers, all British, lack imagination and adaptability to the desert conditions.  Also they don’t really understand the potential of using the Light Horse in battle and therefore tend to underestimate the Australians as a fighting force. The script actually emphasise this by showing the Germans (who because of their air power and other technologies to some extent direct the Turkish forces) recognise the British failure to use the Australians effectively. The ‘anti-pom’ rhetoric is not as strong as in Gallipoli but the story does require the British commander to be replaced by a more flexible Brit who in turn is forced to use the Australians in a way that brings out their best qualities. I won’t spoil what happens in the battle itself but it is certainly spectacular.

I can appreciate that for a general audience the criticisms of the film are perhaps well made, but for anyone interested in a relatively under-represented aspect of the First World War and in an example of identity-building in the Commonwealth of Australia, I think it works well. I enjoyed the film very much. The clip below shows an air attack on the resting Light Horse in their tented camp and the attempt by ‘Dave’ to save horses.

The politicians and planners behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq ignored the lessons of the British capture of Baghdad from the Ottomans at the end of the #FirstWorldWar.

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https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/entering-baghdad-liberators